Anglican leaders accept Catholic belief on Mary

SEATTLE – A group of Roman Catholic and Anglican leaders studying the role of Mary, mother of Jesus, said Monday that after years of talks they have agreed that Catholic teachings on the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary into heaven are consistent with Anglican interpretations of the Bible.

The two sides issued a joint document, “Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ,” which will be examined by the Vatican and the Anglican Communion. If the terms are accepted by top church officials – not a certainty – it would overcome one of the major doctrinal disagreements dividing the world’s 77 million Anglicans and more than 1 billion Roman Catholics.

The Anglican Communion has opposed the teachings because there is no direct account of them in the Bible.

Immaculate Conception refers to the mandatory Catholic dogma, pronounced in 1854, that Mary was born free of “original sin.” The Assumption refers to the belief required since 1950 that Mary was directly received, body and soul, into heaven at the end of her life. Anglicans have neither teaching.

Both Catholicism and Anglicanism agree in their belief in the virginal conception, meaning that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born.

Anglican Archbishop Peter Carnley of Perth, Australia, co-chairman of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, said the Catholic dogmas concerning Mary are “consonant” with biblical teachings about hope and grace.

He said the only remaining question between the faiths is the authority on which those dogmas are based.

“For Anglicans, that old complaint that these dogmas were not provable by scripture will disappear,” Carnley said at a news conference with Seattle’s Catholic Archbishop, Alexander Brunett.